“Magic” by Coldplay, Saturday, February 10, 2024
Ghost Stories was Coldplay’s sixth studio album. The album follows Coldplay’s most avante-garde record Mylo Xyoto, an album that seemed to revel in Coldplay being one of the biggest bands in the world. But sparse was the tone of Ghost Stories. Rather than extraverted stadium anthems, melancholy piano and synth drums rule the record except for the Avicci-produced “Sky Full of Stars.” Lead singer Chris Martin received no vocal help from featured artists like Rihanna or JAY-Z as Coldplay’s star ascended during Viva La Vida and their previous record. While the album may have not been what audiences were expecting from the charismatic band, Martin wrote the lyrics as he healed from the dissolution of his marriage to actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
CUT ME IN TWO. In March 2014, actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay’s Chris Martin announced that they were “consciously uncoupling.” The term was coined by author and psychotherapist Katherine Woodward Thomas, building on sociologist Dianne Vaughn’s 1976 “uncoupling theory.” Vaughn identified that some relationships reach a dead end where both partners feel that there is no salvaging the relationship. Thomas’s work went further, releasing the book Conscious Uncoupling: 5 Steps for Living Happily Even After in 2015. Thomas’s guidelines laid a foundation for married couples to end their marriages amicably. Paltrow popularized the term when she and Chris Martin split. Along with the start of their separation, Coldplay released “Magic,” the first single from their album Ghost Stories, released later in May. The minimalist instrumentation of the song comes to life by the end of the song in typical Coldplay fashion. The lyrics are an extended metaphor of stage magic. Martin sings about being “cut in two,” yet believing in magic. Beyond the metaphor, the lyrics rely solely on the listener’s connection: “Love is like magic. Magic can’t be explained; therefore, I won’t attempt to explain the deep sense of loss as the mother of my children has decided to leave me.”
CALL IT TRUE. Maybe that’s a little too harsh of a critique of Chris Martin’s relationship. The issue is Chris Martin isn’t a great lyricist. He’s a charismatic frontman to one of the most successful bands, and until Ghost Stories, the band had been one of the most positive bands on the radio. It wasn’t through deep lyrical analysis that we came to trust Martin as our narrator. He simply gave us blatantly obvious signs and wonders like “Look at the stars and how they shine for you. They were all yellow.” The band’s instrumentation filled in the rest and made us believe that the song was deep. Furthermore, nothing up to Ghost Stories was personal to the band, at least in an obvious way. Martin wrote songs about Paltrow and fatherhood without ever identifying his subject. Now, amid a very public divorce, Martin is starting to feel very sad feelings, but as a lyricist he relies on the same vague metaphors, leaving the band to fill in the space. And yet, if I hadn’t broken down this song, it would have just sat as slightly sad background music. And that’s the testament to Coldplay as a band. They are certainly not as bad as the critics and the haters say. They’re fine. Their music never offends the ear. You can listen to them for hours, not realizing that time is passing. And that’s the magic of Coldplay: to disappear into the background.
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